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  1 SYLO
Author: MacHale, D. J.
    Series: SYLO chronicles, #1
 
Click for Large Image
Class: Fiction
Age: 10-14
Language: English
LC: PZ7.M177
Grade: 5-9
Print Run: 150000
ISBN-13: 9781595146656
LCCN: BD13078014
Imprint: Razorbill
Pub Date: 07/02/2013
Availability: Out of Print Confirmed
List: $17.99
  Hardcover
Physical Description: 407 pages ; 22 cm H 8.56", W 5.75", D 1.3", 1.1625 lbs.
LC Series:
Brodart Sources: Brodart's Insight Catalog: Teen
Brodart's TOP Young Adult Titles
Bibliographies: Children's Core Collection, 22nd ed.
Children's Core Collection, 23rd ed.
Children's Core Collection, 24th ed.
Middle and Junior High Core Collection, 12th ed.
Middle and Junior High Core Collection, 13th ed.
Middle and Junior High Core Collection, 14th ed.
Middle and Junior High Core Collection, 15th ed.
Senior High Core Collection, 19th ed.
Senior High Core Collection, 20th ed.
Senior High Core Collection, 21st ed.
Awards: Horn Book Guide Titles, Rated 1 - 4
Kirkus Starred Reviews
Starred Reviews: Kirkus Reviews
TIPS Subjects: Mystery/Detective Fiction
Science Fiction
Suspense/Thriller
BISAC Subjects: JUVENILE FICTION / Action & Adventure / Survival Stories
JUVENILE FICTION / Boys & Men
JUVENILE FICTION / Social Themes / Friendship
LC Subjects: Adventure and adventurers, Fiction
Biological warfare, Fiction
Maine, Fiction
Military helicopters, Fiction
Viruses, Fiction
SEARS Subjects: Adventure fiction
Biological warfare, Fiction
Helicopters, Fiction
Maine, Fiction
Viruses, Fiction
Reading Programs: Accelerated Reader Level: 4.7 , Points: 16.0
Lexile Level: 680
 
Annotations
Brodart's TOP Young Adult Titles | 06/01/2013
Tucker Pierce doesn't trust the helicopters swooping in to tell him that all of Pemberwick Island, Maine needs to be quarantined. The 14-year-old was loving life on the island until the helicopter invasion and those claiming to be with a U.S. military branch called SYLO. Tucker, his friend, Quinn, and a suspicious fisherman's daughter search for answers to the questions SYLO won't let them ask. 336pp.
Starred Reviews:
Kirkus Reviews | 06/01/2013
This riveting novel starts with a question: How safe is it to remain uninvolved? At 14, Tucker Pierce is all about fitting in and going with the flow. While his friends talk about going out into the world and doing great things, he prefers to dream small. He likes life on tiny, fictional Pemberwick Island, Maine, and hopes to take over his father's landscaping business eventually. For now, warming the bench at the weekly football games is just fine with him. But when the island is quarantined by the U.S. Navy, things start to fall apart, and Tucker can't stand aside for long. People start dying. The girl he wants to get to know a whole lot better, Tori, is captured along with Tucker and imprisoned behind barbed wire. The country-club golf course has been converted into a military camp run by a division of the military they've never heard of: SYLO. There's no communication from the mainland to the island and no way to get word of what's happening out to the world. Tucker and Tori need to get to the mainland to tell their story. Can they get past the naval blockade? Can they survive the sky-borne attack on the blockade? Whom can they trust? Who--or what--is SYLO? And who is fighting whom? MacHale knows boy readers and delivers, giving them an action-packed plot with a likable, Everykid protagonist and doling out answers with just the right amount of parsimony to keep the pages turning. This first installment in a proposed trilogy is absolutely un-put-down-able, more exciting than an X-Box and roller coaster combined. (Adventure. 10-16). 416pg. KIRKUS MEDIA LLC, c2013.
Journal Reviews
Booklist | 06/01/2013
Grades 5-8. High-school freshman Tucker Pierce lives on isolated Pemberwick Island, just off the coast of Maine. He has the requisite wiseacre best friend, Quinn, and is crushing on two unobtainable girls, Tori and Olivia. But when a series of sudden and mysterious deaths, including one of Tucker's classmates, throws everything he knows into turmoil, it leaves him with no idea where to turn or who to trust. Tucker's conversational, first-person point-of-view draws the reader in as SYLO, a military operation endorsed by the president, takes over the island. It quickly becomes apparent that SYLO forces will stop at nothing to see that everyone stays put. But then Tucker witnesses several cold-blooded killings, and he and his friends are determined to escape to the mainland. Once there, they find more questions than answers, and the story ends with a wide-open cliff-hanger and no resolution whatsoever. With this extremely high-octane story that's the equivalent to a summer movie blockbuster (enough explosions and firepower to put Michael Bay to shame), MacHale kicks off an apocalyptic trilogy sure to leave readers demanding the next installment. HIGH-DEMAND BACKSTORY: MacHale is the author of the bestsetting Pendragon series so, clearly, there are more than a few middle-grade kiddos who'll be snapping up this one. Osborne, Charli. 416p. AMERICAN LIBRARY ASSOCIATION, c2013.
Bulletin of the Center for Children's Books | 09/01/2013
R. Gr. 5-9. The laid-back life style on Pemberwick Island, off the coast of Maine, suits fourteen-year-old Tucker just fine: he's got a few friends, an undemanding spot on the football team, and some extra cash helping out his dad and the local lobstermen. In this first installment of a trilogy, Pemberwick's peace is shattered by several mysterious deaths of otherwise healthy residents, the appearance of a dealer in performance-enhancing crystals, and the sudden occupation of the island by a U.S. military organization called SYLO, ostensibly there to quarantine the islanders while the CDC isolates an unnamed contagion. Many of the islanders, including Tucker and his buddies Quinn and Tori, aren't falling for this explanation, mostly due to the suspicious combination of severed mainland communication, the incarceration of seemingly blameless citizens, the dearth of actual quarantine procedures, and the eerie black spacecraft that zoom over Pemberwick. After a group of rebel islanders, including Tori's father, are killed by SYLO, the teens stage a daring escape by boat to try to summon help from the mainland, but, as the cliffhanger ending demonstrates, the East Coast has plenty of problems of its own. MacHale is off to a powerhouse start in this well-paced thriller. Taking the time in his ample page count to establish islander relationships and the state of normal on Pemberwick pays off when the action kicks in, and readers are not only entertained by the pyrotechnics but emotionally invested in the characters and their quirky piece of home turf. The reveal of SYLO and its enemy arrives with a bang at the last minute, leaving readers stranded with the teens in Portland, Maine and primed for the next title. EB. 416p. THE BOARD OF TRUSTEES OF THE UNIV. OF ILLINOIS, c2013.
Horn Book Guide | 05/01/2014
4. Tucker, a football player and average student, skates through life until SYLO, a mysterious branch of the military, quarantines his hometown off the coast of Maine. After suspicion builds surrounding the original premise for the quarantine, Tucker and his friends risk their lives to escape. Though the action can be exhausting and exposition sometimes placed awkwardly, the story is suspenseful and mysterious. rr. 407pg. THE HORN BOOK, c2014.
Publishers Weekly | 06/10/2013
Ages 10-up. MacHale (the Pendragon books) shifts into thriller mode as he launches a trilogy with an entertaining and creepy tale of teens forced into a dire situation. Tucker is a high school freshman on Pemberwick Island, Maine, content to be a benchwarmer on the varsity football team. After the star tailback drops dead during a game, Tucker and his best friend Quinn go for a therapeutic bike ride at night and spy a mysterious aircraft. Soon after, more people start dying, and the island is quarantined and placed under protection of the SYLO agency. The introduction of a drug called the Ruby increases the threat, as humans and animals alike become strong and fast under its influence, but risk overdosing. As deaths continue to mount, Quinn, Tucker, and a girl named Tori become suspicious of their own families, as well as the government. MacHale throws a lot of action and a touch of romance into his conspiracy-laden plot, but fans of similar series (Michael Grant's Gone books, for example) should have no problem keeping up. Agent: Richard Curtis, Richard Curtis Associates. (July). 416p. PUBLISHERS WEEKLY, c2013.
School Library Journal | 09/01/2013
Gr 8 Up. MacHale's current-day dystopic series opener begins with a mysterious death and gets stranger from there. On Pemberwick Island off the coast of Maine, Tucker Pierce, 14, is vaulted onto his high school football team's starting lineup after a star player falls dead at the end of a game. To clear their heads, Tucker and his friend Quinn Carr take a late-night bike ride on the road that runs around the island's perimeter only to encounter a shadowy flying object that emits strange music that then explodes over the water. Within a few days, a stranger to the island offers Tucker a "supplement" called "the Ruby" that makes him feel superhuman. Then a military force wearing red camo uniforms with a patch bearing the word "SYLO" takes control of the island, and the president announces a quarantine until the CDC can identify and neutralize the "Pemberwick virus." Tucker and Quinn don't know what to make of events or who to trust as martial law takes over. In desperation, the teens make plans with Tori Sleeper, a lobsterman's daughter, to use her dad's two boats to escape the island. MacHale pens some terrific and unique action scenes, but they never overwhelm the story as the characters face one quandary, riddle, or dilemma after another in unraveling the mystery of what is happening. The shocking ending will leave readers hungry for the next installment. Eric Norton, McMillan Memorial Library, Wisconsin Rapids, WI. 416p. SCHOOL LIBRARY JOURNAL, c2013.
~VOYA (Voice of Youth Advocates Magazine - Retired Journal) | 10/01/2013
4Q 4P M J. The author of the Pendragon series has stepped up to the plate and delivered an excellent start to an apocalyptic conspiracy trilogy. The question is, just what is going on? Is it an alien invasion or a battle between two branches of our government that has escalated into a shooting war? Also, there is a strange red substance that provides superhuman strength and speed to users, until they burn out and die. Fourteen-year-old Tucker Pierce is caught up in investigating these mysterious goings-on, beginning with the death of a football player, obviously hyped up on something. Tucker finds the red substance he took and tries it himself, but he is afraid to risk his life with a repeat performance. Tucker was also one of those who heard the strange music at night and saw a black shape in the sky explode. Shortly afterward, troops arrive and quarantine Pemberwick Island. In spite of seeing their leader murder several people who tried to escape, Tucker and several friends make a break for it. After a wild chase, they make it to the mainland, only to discover that Portland has been attacked and is now vacant. Where can they go, and how will they get the news about the invasion out to the rest of the world, especially since the black ships are coming for them? The cliff-hanger ending to this action-filled, end-of-the-world-as-we-know-it adventure, with teens pitted against mysterious invaders, should leave teen readers clamoring for the next installment.--Bonnie Kunzel. 416p. VOICE OF YOUTH ADVOCATES, c2013.
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